Morgan’s Chapel, a pre-colonial war parish in West Virginia, was in the process of performing some needed renovations to the nave when something very unexpected appeared. The removal of the modern layers of paint uncovered a wealth of notes written on the wall.
In a difficult economy, churches suffer the same way that other small businesses do. Income is down in many places and that means that expenses need to be cut. Often that means cutting salary expenses. The problem is that many people who are laid off from church positions are discovering they lack the same safety net that other laid-off workers can count upon.
There are numerous stories popping up today about the President’s address to the graduating class of Notre Dame yesterday. The invitation was offensive to some in the Catholic Church because of the President’s pro-choice stand.
In times of natural disasters or emergencies, local authorities and folks from the community are likely to reach out to faith communities to help with recovery. But hardly any congregations have an existing plan in place to respond when disasters happen. And the requests aren’t always of a material nature.
From NPR: Many know John Danforth as a former three-term U.S. Senator from Missouri, and former Ambassador to the United Nations. But the Midwestern Republican’s interests stretch far beyond politics. Danforth is also an ordained Episcopal priest. The public servant talks openly about his faith and why he believes right-wing evangelicals have done more harm than good for the GOP.
In the world of business, it’s all about the numbers. In the world of ministry, it’s all about the numbers as well. Put lots of bodies in the pews and dollars in the plate and everyone loves you. But if things stagnate or decline, someone will say that it’s time for the minister to move on.
Being Yanks, we are seldom told that we can’t publish a bit of news “until the Queen announces it,” but that was the case when
Hovering over the book is a small sense that, far from disproving the existence of God, this evolving doctrine might point merely to humankind’s slow education into the real nature of the divine.
A contracting national economy has led congregations across the religious spectrum to cut or downsize clergy positions, hire part-time lay people instead and delay filling vacancies. Veteran clergy members, watching their retirement accounts wither, are postponing retirement.
Christianity did not have to form such an easy and ultimately unholy alliance with industrialism, consumerism, and corporatism. There is another, subversive spirit that runs throughout our history, a strain of thought that provides a religious, ecological, and radically democratic alternative to where we are right now.